The Monkey Cage

i wouldn’t go so far as to say “no way,” john. maybe not often the primary way, sure. but in some cases, or to some degree, exposure to the attitudes of other college sports fans, or the environment surrounding college sports, or media coverage, or etc etc, might have contributed to one’s attitudes/beliefs about gender roles, propriety of certain relational configurations, etc etc.

no? i mean, you don’t often see the star halfback propose on TV to his boyfriend after the bowl game. and what are the women on the field up to when the cameras roll by?

i don’t - at all - disagree with your main point that these data are by no means dispositive on causality. and not that it would help on that front, but i would be interested to see what the survey would look like if taken at a softball game. or what about a swim/dive meet?

“there is no way that cheering for college sports teams causes you to become more sexist”

Really? There is no way? I can think of many plausible conjectures that say differently, just as Joel states.

Joel: Maybe. But I have a hard time imagining that identifying with a sports team explains much of the variance in sexism. Obviously, sports may convey certain ideas about gender roles, but I suspect that people’s attitudes depend a lot on how much they root for the home team.

NA: So give me some “plausible conjectures.”

Obviously, I meant “people’s attitudes do not depend…”

I’d rather take John’s larger point. If this came to me to review, and the claim was made that watching sports caused a person to be more homophobic or sexist, it’d be a clear rejection.

For me, it’s not that it can’t be a causal factor, but that a confound is almost certain to exist, and causal order is definitely up in the air.

This would be pretty easy to replicate in a lab. Has anyone done that?

Here’s a theory for you, John…perhaps watching sporting events (usually involving young, handsome, physically fit men in tight fitting outfits) makes a man more attracted to members of the same sex? And since homosexuality is not accepted in the world of male sports fans, those desires manifest themselves as homophobia.

Dan, they also found the same effect among women.

This would be pretty easy to replicate in a lab. Has anyone done that?

1. We have rats watch a season of college basketball; 2. see if their heart rates are correlated with the mention of certain teams; and 3. ask their opinions on gay marriage. Easy!

It all boils down what we mean by causal. But I can surely see network effects, peer pressure, learning… being proxied by watching sports. In which case, sure, watching more sports will lead to more homophobia, since in order to watch more sports you’ll be placed in contexts where homophobia rules.